Is Desire Overrated?

[HTC_Desire]

I think you're either a "glass half full" or "glass half empty" kinda person.

I read sooooooo many reviews on smartphones, decided that I wanted Android no matter what (I had been considering the iphone), then decided i wanted a snapdragon processor as they seemed to be just around the corner, and the first decent offering was the Desire. It has done everything i ever wanted and more, and simply blows away anything i have had in the past. There will always be new stuff coming to market, but I love my phone, I love the deal I got, and i will be perfectly happy with it until my contract runs out.

For me:
It does all the stuff a phone should do - I'm a happy bunny
It has a great free Sat Nav - WooHoo
It plays DivX movies and television programmes - RockPlayer Rocks
I can play poker - great for those long breaks in the office toilets
I can read all the daily newspapers in one application - "Newspapers" rocks
I can see where friends and family are on Google Latitude
It has a camera and a Video facility - It works
I have GPS
I have email - Love it!!!
It has lots of other stuff too.........
It looks great and folks at work want my phone.......

I love my phone

 

[HTC_Desire]

well, compared to the android alternatives, at least...

I HATE itunes with a vengeance. My wife has an ipod touch and anytime I try to update, I'm lucky if I get a 1 in 4 success rate of syncing (Its on a PC) as it is constantly crashing. Compare that to my Android (or even my previous LG Viewty) where i simply drag the mp3s across in Explorer, using my own folder structure, and it all just works. i will never use iTunes out of choice.

 

[slugger09]

I HA

​

TE itunes with a vengeance. My wife has an ipod touch and anytime I try to update, I'm lucky if I get a 1 in 4 success rate of syncing (Its on a PC) as it is constantly crashing. Compare that to my Android (or even my previous LG Viewty) where i simply drag the mp3s across in Explorer, using my own folder structure, and it all just works. i will never use iTunes out of choice.

Having had an iPhone for 2 years its never once crashed when sending.

We all have different needs and for me the desire doesn't fit any of mine particularly well, I will be happy to see it go

 

[Griff_LI]

We've been through slugger09's FM Radio problems on another thread. He/she uses non-HTC headphones which is fine BUT all phone-based FM receivers use the earth sheath from the headphones for an aerial. If your headphones are built differently to the HTCs it won't work as an aerial particularly well. From my experience on-phone FM receievers in general are pretty poor - they can work but don't expect much, especially inside buildings. My previous two phones' (both Nokias) had FM radios that were less than useful. I've tried the Desire's and it's much better IMHO.

It does occur to me that there's an opportunity for some enterprising headphone manufacturer to create a set of cans with an optimised aerial built-in...

I notice the iPhone doesn't have an FM radio so this is new ground for an iPhone user.

As for iTunes it's yet another of Apple's great marketing ploys. They make it work a specific way and patent all the methods. This means any newcomers to the market have to go their own way. If you come to the game via iTunes (as the vast majority of MP3 listeners do) then any other way of working feels alien and you have to actually make a leap to break the habits. As I come from a computing background I have no problem with dealing with music as individual files and copying them to/from a phone/MP3-player is like copying them to/from any other storage. This means iTunes feels horribly over-engineered to me and other syncing tools feel horribly under-engineered to iTunes dedicates.

 

[HTC_Desire]

I know I am going to get slaughtered for this but I'm prepared Well to be honest I want convincing

The other elements of the phone like internet browsing is great however doesn't interest me, I have a laptop for that.


Another issue is build quality, When I took my iPhone 3G out of the box for the first time it felt like quality, when I took the desire out with its cheap plastic it felt like a

 

[jim_h]

We've been through slugger09's FM Radio problems on another thread. He/she uses non-HTC headphones which is fine BUT all phone-based FM receivers use the earth sheath from the headphones for an aerial. If your headphones are built differently to the HTCs it won't work as an aerial particularly well. From my experience on-phone FM receievers in general are pretty poor - they can work but don't expect much, especially inside buildings. My previous two phones' (both Nokias) had FM radios that were less than useful. I've tried the Desire's and it's much better IMHO.

Which is pretty much what I said...

Why on earth did you even bother buying a smartphone, (desire or iphone). Sounds like you should get one of the Sony Walkman range and be done with it.

Which is pretty much what I said...

 

[Bunjiweb]

If you want something to play music well, buy an MP3 player. If you want a phone that plays music well, buy a phone made by the worlds biggest manufacturer of MP3 players - Apple.

You don't really seem to be interested in any of the particular benefits the Desire offers. So why, pray tell, did you buy it? You say the other features like internet browsing are great, but you don't care as you have a laptop for that. Why do you need a smartphone then? You seem to have bought the phone for a bunch of things it isn't really optimised for, and decided all the best features aren't something you need.

Save yourself some money, return the Desire, and get a cheap dumbphone and an iPod Touch.

Another +1 for this post....

It seems some people are slating the Desire simply because it isn't an iphone, or because they want it to work with the most horrific piece of software to grace the world, ever - iTunes. If you really think that the Desire is not meeting your needs because it doesn't work properly with iTunes you are very deluded! It is actually iTunes which is NOT designed to work with other phones and apple continually patch it to try and remove syncing with other devices. Why on earth is that a bad point about the desire? If you want a program that does the same job as iTunes but without Apple's iron grip in the background, try double twist or any of the other similar programs that are designed to work with android phones, not fight them!

There are so many positives to the Desire that to simply quote downsides based on user misuse or using the wrong kind of software and expecting it to work is just plain stupid. Some people are just entrenched in apple's closed system and are then surprised when it doesn't play ball with other manufacturer's devices, but this is the nature of Apple unfortunately...

I am all for constructive criticism of any gadget or technology, but some of the stuff that has come up in this thread (for and against) just smacks of fanboism and half-formed opinions that don't have much factual backing.

 

[MrJingles]

I think I love you. May I ask what you mean by 'I own a cellular agency' though? I'm intrigued!

Sure. I'm an authorized, independent agent for one of the carriers which means that I own a store that represents that carrier. I truly love the business and technology in general.

Take care.

 

[JimmiG]

Perfectly happy with my Desire. My only real gripe is battery life. Sometimes when I'm out for an entire day with the phone, it will go dead just before I get back home at about 5:30 p.m. But most of the time I'm able to top off the charge over the lunch break so it lasts for the whole day.

As long as you're not using the phone, standby battery life is fine, and a few apps downloading some kilobytes of data in the background every 3 hours won't do much harm. But when you surf the Internet on the device, it heats up in your hand and you can almost see the battery meter bar getting shorter before your eyes.

As for the design, I'm actually getting to like it. It looks retro without seeming outdated. It doesn't try to copy Apple like Samsung did with the Galaxy.
Agree about the back cover, but it doesn't rattle or feel loose to me. I've only had to remove it twice, when I first got the phone, and when I got a 16GB microSD card to replace the 4GB one it came with. Both times, I feared the cover would snap in half. But you can actually order new back covers from HTC, so I wouldn't worry The size is perfect so that browsing the web in landscape mode works really well, but the phone is still not annoying to carry around in a jeans pocket.

 

[liquidmonkey]

have has nothing but love for my desire the last months, so awesome!!

having said that, there are 2 issues that need improvement:
- loud speaker is not that good at all
- camera has no lens cover which is a real disappointment for me. and its nearly flush with the backing so when u put the phone down your risking scratching the lens cover. please give us lens covers FFS htc.

 

[willis]

Is The desire overrated? Perhaps. But mainly by the reviewers who get to play with it for half a day before having to give it back. ALso unsurprisingly overrated by the ones who have spent their hard earned money to buy one.

Also, smartphones costs more than an mp3 player and camera bought together, and more expensive than a lot of laptops. Why is it so bad that someone expects these features to at least be on par with 'other' phones?

 

[nacatomi]

<soapbox >
Its all down to personal preference and expectations.
I personally don't think its overated. I have been on a quest for a while now to find for me the perfect smartphone. Out of the current batch with the Desire I think I have found it, taken in its separate parts then no there is little that is outstanding or remarkable. As a complete package though it is remarkable and outstanding, its a jack of all trades and while it might not be a master of all, it's definitely up there with the best. It does every thing I wanted it to (I researched a lot before buying) well enough to the point where I have gone from carrying my Touch HD, iPod Touch and a TomTom 920 (when needed) to just one device, I get bored of phones quickly and 3 months in I still love it.

Almost Desktop Quality Internet, Email, MP3, Video, GPS, Apps, (Cough ehem FM Radio!!), Usable Camera, Usable Video Camera, Access point, Nice(considered by some) UI. What more?

</soapbox >

It's just a phone people. Everyones different and everyone expects different things, if it works for you then good, if it doesn't then look elsewhere.

 

[chevy454]

As I mentioned previous I am a music lover, I loved the way iTunes was simples...

Is this real life?! Because, you may be the only person I've *ever* heard say that!

 

[slugger09]

Well following the advice on here I went out and got an iPod touch and a cheap Nokia party phone and gave organised for the Desire to be returned, I feel like better off now, thanks all.

 

[willis]

Well following the advice on here I went out and got an iPod touch and a cheap Nokia party phone and gave organised for the Desire to be returned, I feel like better off now, thanks all.

Together with your now heavier wallet you'll probably need a man bag now.